The Serial Position Effect in Advertising

by Shelley Moore, Demand Media

Viewers remember ads better depending on ad placement.

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Psychological and media research shows that people tend to recall items at the beginning and at the end of a list better than they recall items in the middle. This is known as the serial position effect. The effect has important implications for advertising, such as placement of television ads within a commercial break and placement of ads on a website. The serial position effect appears to work across a variety of media.

Primacy and Recency Effects

In psychology, the ability to easily recall of items at the beginning of a list is called the primacy effect. In a list of words, for example, the individual may recall the first word, then the first word in addition to the second word, then the first two words in addition to the third, and down the list. Eventually it becomes too difficult to add any more words to the list in memory. Recall of words at the end of a list is considered the recency effect, in which short-term memory allows the person to remember those words in addition to the first words.

TV Ad Placement

A review of research published in the "Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication" in 2006 found that both the primary and recency effects hold true across various types of media. The recency effect might actually be stronger than the primacy effect in television. The authors cite research indicating that television viewers have better recall of ads at the end of a commercial break rather than ads at the beginning.

Website Link Placement

The serial position effect also matters in online marketing. In the 2006 review of studies, the authors found that links at the top and bottom of a menu on a website received the most clicks. Results were the same when controlled for link wording. The research indicates that an Internet marketer should place the most important link at the top, and another important link at the bottom. The first item may simply be easiest to click because it requires the least search activity. The last item may appeal to individuals who read the entire menu and keep the bottom link in short-term memory. Some site visitors also may skip from the top to the bottom without reading any links in between.

Search Engine Ads

The top two ad positions on the first search engine results page are best in search engine marketing, according to research presented at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Society for Information Science & Technology. During a lengthy marketing campaign by a major U.S. retailer, top ad ranking had importance for both click-through and conversion rates. A recency effect was not found in this research; other ad positions had relatively similar effects to one another.

About the Author

Shelley Moore is a journalist and award-winning short-story writer. She specializes in writing about personal development, health, careers and personal finance. Moore has been published in "Family Circle" magazine and the "Milwaukee Sentinel" newspaper, along with numerous other national and regional magazines, daily and weekly newspapers and corporate publications. She has a Bachelor of Science in psychology.

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